Teacher: The Final Act (A Hollywood Rock n' Romance Trilogy #3)

by R. L. Merrill

  “It can’t get here fast enough,” he said against my lips before pulling away.

  We watched each other as he backed down the hall away from me. I gave him a finger wave and he clutched his chest in mock pain. When I couldn’t see him anymore, I finally turned to head back to the room. I figured as wrung out emotionally as I was at that point, I could sleep like the dead.

  Incessant knocking at the door woke me the next morning. Shit! It was after ten! I’d totally overslept! I pulled on a robe and ran for the outer door to the suite.

  “Finally,” the woman said as she pushed past me with her roller bags. “First Patricia doesn’t answer her phone, then you make me wait in the hall.”

  I had one pissed off hairdresser in front of me and no Patricia. “I’m sorry. I thought Patricia would be here. Please excuse me for a minute,” I said, feeling out of sorts. I saw there was fresh breakfast laid out so I figured she’d been here. I frowned. “Help yourself to some food,” I slurred, then walked over to Jane’s room.

  “Janey, sweetie. Wake up. We overslept.” Jane sat up with a start. Her red hair was all over the place.

  “Where’s Patricia? I thought she was coming to wake us up.”

  I was already headed out to find my phone. I picked it up and skimmed through the “I fucking love you” texts from Danny that seemed to get drunker and drunker as they went on. But no messages from Patricia. I called, straight to voicemail. I texted. Nothing.

  “Young lady, I need to get going on that hair of yours or there will be no wedding! Get that dress on. You’re not pulling it over my ‘do!”

  I did what Francine ordered, mostly out of fear, and prayed Patricia would walk through the door soon. I took a quick shower, keeping my hair from getting wet, then I dressed in my black satin undergarments I wore the night of the dinner party at Danny’s parent’s house, figuring he’d finally get to appreciate them. I left the garter belt off, but I’d picked up a black garter. It was barely covered by my dress when I walked. No hope in hell when I sat down.

  Maxine raked the brush through my hair, then proceeded to tease the shit out of it until it was about nine times its normal volume. She used so much hairspray I thought I’d have a chemical burn. Her assistant rolled in shortly after and got to work on my makeup. Dramatic black eyeliner and false eyelashes were applied after some thick foundation. Pale pink shimmery shadow and matching frosted lipstick finished off the look. Jane stumbled out and gasped when she saw me.

  “Holy… Wow! Is that really what women looked like back then? Because OH MY GOD is my dad going to shit a brick—UH! Sorry. I mean he’s going to be so surprised.”

  She and I cracked up, but Maxine wasn’t about to let us start having fun. It bothered me that Patricia still hadn’t called or showed up so I walked over to the room phone and called her room. Finally, someone picked up.

  “Max! Hi, it’s Jesse—”

  “She’s gone,” he said, cutting me off. “She, um, she came in and found… She’s gone. I don’t know where.” He slammed the phone down.

  “What the hell?” I instructed the hairdresser to get started on Jane and then called my mom. “Patricia is missing. Can you come sit with Jane and then you can go next? I need to find her?”

  She said she and Dad would be right over. I texted Danny what was going on. I threw my flip-flops on and was out the door with just my phone in my hand.

  I searched the hotel from top to bottom when finally she called. “Jesse,” she croaked. “Jesse, I’m sorry. I can’t do this.” She sounded terrible!

  “Do what? Sweetie, where are you?” I stopped in the middle of the casino floor and looked around. Where the hell could she be?

  “I left last night. That bastard. After ten years… Ten years! And he does this? I didn’t need to see that.”

  “Patricia,” I was starting to lose her to tears again. “Please tell me where you are. I’m coming to you.”

  She sobbed some ugly sobs on the other end of the line, and then pulled herself together. “I’m on the Strip. Bally’s. I’m getting drunk and then I’m going to blow all of his fucking money on craps, and NO ONE IS GOING TO STOP ME!” She hung up on me.

  Holy shit. I dialed Danny.

  “Honey, what’s going on?” He sounded like I’d woken him up. Good. That meant he slept.

  “It’s Patricia, baby. Something bad happened with her and Max. I’m going to Bally’s to find her.” I burst through the front doors and went outside. I hailed a cab and climbed inside. “I’m going after her. You just make sure everyone gets where they need to be, okay? Keep your phone handy.” He started to protest as I hung up.

  It only took a few minutes for the cab to arrive. “Oh no! I forgot my wallet! I’m having a bit of an emergency here. See, I’m supposed to get married and our coordinator is missing and—”

  “Jest go, young lady. Leave the fare at the front desk for meh.” The little old man smiled at me, only a little fiendishly.

  “Thank you, so so much!” I got out of the cab and froze. It was fucking December 31st in Vegas. There was snow on the ground. I was in flip-flops and a short dress.

  “Motherfucker,” I cursed as I fled toward the doors of the Sports Book at the back of Bally’s. I slipped and slid my way up the walkway, teeth chattering as I got inside. I hurried over to the craps area, ignoring the looks I was getting from people.

  “SNAKE EYES, BABY! DADDY NEEDS A NEW SEQUIN DRESS AND PUMPS,” I heard over the din of people. A large crowd was gathered around a table near the center. I elbowed my way through the people and gaped at what I found.

  There, in all of her drunken glory, was the beautiful red-haired Patricia. But not the all-business, kick-ass-and-take-names Patricia. No. This Patricia had her hair down, was wearing just a slip of a black dress, the one she’d worn to the concert last night because she was planning on having Max take her out afterwards. She had kicked off her heels and one of her straps was hanging down. Her ample bosoms were dangerously close to making a public appearance.

  “Patricia,” I called as I approached her.

  Her eyes locked on me, but it took her a minute to recognize me. “Priscilla,” she shouted, then grabbed me into a hug. “You look amazing! Where’s Elvis?” She snorted loudly and cackled. “He’s probably getting blown by some drag queen. OOPS! Sorry! NO, that would be MY husband!” She laughed hysterically as she threw the dice again.

  The crowd all cheered, which I guess meant she did something right because money started changing hands and bets were placed on the table. The casino guy slid the dice back over to her, his eyes catching mine in warning.

  Shit. “Sweetie, why don’t we just collect your winnings and go talk somewhere? You can tell me what happened.”

  She pushed me away from her and stumbled, then got back to work with her dice, blowing on them and kissing her hands before throwing them down the table. More screams and cheers.

  “Dammit! No, I am not leaving this spot until I lose all of his fucking money! I’m not about to let him blow it on cheap men wearing dresses nicer than the ones in my closet.” She hiccupped and stumbled again.

  A casino manager approached us with security. “Ma’am, you’re going to have to step away from the table,” he said sternly.

  Patricia raised an expertly drawn eyebrow at him and stepped back into her shoes. “But I’m not ready to leave yet, SIR.” Then she turned towards the table, reached in, and scattered the chips everywhere, taking out people’s stacks on the ledge. She barreled through the crowd whooping in victory towards the doors leading to the Strip.

  All eyes landed on me. I gave a nervous laugh, and hightailed it out of there, trying desperately to catch up with her. As drunk as she was, she could still run pretty damn fast in heels.

  I caught up to her on the sidewalk, where she was laughing hysterically. She slipped on a piece of ice and started to go down, but a nice older gentleman caught her.

  “You’re so sweet,” she said, kissing his cheek and leavin
g a red smear in her wake. He laughed and shook his head. Patricia then turned and started down the street mumbling under her breath about rhinestones and hairnets.

  “Patricia! We’ve got to get out of this cold,” I said through gritted teeth. I grabbed her arm and pulled her into the next hotel, Planet Hollywood. “Let’s just sit down and you can tell me what happened.”

  “I don’t want to sit down.” She threw off my arms and stormed over to the roulette table. She yanked open her black purse and rained money down on the table. “Put it all on black,” she hollered, laughing loudly. The guy at the table looked nervous and I saw him make eye contact with security.

  Double Shit. “Patricia, we really have to—”

  “Alright, ladies. Let’s take a walk.” Before I could get a word out, four burly guys in suits had each of us by the arms. They dragged us out of the casino area and through a semi-hidden door. Patricia fought them off as best as she could, but these guys were strong. I knew I was going to have bruises and my heart sank as I realized that yet another wedding was not going to be happening.

  “We don’t allow working girls on the casino floor. You two must be new in town or you would have known that.”

  Patricia stopped fighting and just burst into more hysterical laughter. I tried desperately to explain, but the casino security guy wasn’t listening to me. They carried us through some back doors to a waiting patrol car. Then I really dug my heels in.

  “You’re making a terrible mistake! We’re not—”

  “You have nothing on you, unless you carry your ID in your g-string,” the guy said, patting me on the ass before shoving me head first into the patrol car. Patricia was likewise dumped in and she landed on top of me, ass in the air. The guys made some more lewd comments before the patrol officer got into the car and started to pull away.

  I shoved Patricia off of me. She was now bawling loudly. “Officer,” I said as calmly as I could. He ignored me. I tapped on his glass gently.

  “Ma’am, back away. I don’t want to have to taze you.”

  What the fuck was going on here? I could see on the dashboard that it was one forty-five. I’d lost my phone somewhere along the way and Patricia’s purse was back at the roulette table. Danny was going to have a complete cow! I slumped back in my seat and felt tears well up in my eyes.

  I don’t even remember how long it took to get to the police department. When the door opened, I looked up at the officer and said, “Can you please let me speak to—”

  Patricia took that moment to empty the contents of her innards all over my beautiful dress. She heaved and heaved into my lap as I held her hair for her. The cops scrambled for towels or something to clean us up with. They slid on rubber gloves and grabbed garbage bags before yanking first me, then Patricia unceremoniously out of the back of the car. Some tech guys went to work cleaning up the mess. They left me a puke-stained, tear-streaked mess.

  “I’m sorry, Jesse,” Patricia moaned. “I’m so sorry I messed up your day. Danny’s going to fire me, and he should. I have ruined everything for you, for him, for Blackened—”

  “What did you just say?” One of the cops stepped closer to us and handed her a tissue. “Did you just say Blackened?” I looked up at the guy. He was a tall, lanky guy who looked a little young to be a police officer.

  “She did. She’s their manager.”

  He broke into a huge smile. “That’s awesome! I just saw them the night before last. They were amazing! So you two aren’t prostitutes, then?”

  I shook my head. “Nope. Not at all. I’m actually a teacher.” I lost my balance with Patricia leaning against me and the guy caught me before we all fell, getting covered with puke in the process.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, feeling totally dejected.

  “If you’ll just call the Hard Rock and ask for William Tell, you’ll reach Danny. He’ll clear this all up—Oh! Shit, Jesse! They’re already at the chapel. Never mind.”

  “Ma’am, I am sorry this all happened. Is there someone we can call for you?”

  As he spoke to me, the earth just crumbled out from underneath me. I landed in a heap on the ground, covered in vomit, freezing my ass off, and still not Mrs. Danny Black.

  Chapter - Thirteen

  We flew home from Vegas the next day. The police finally agreed to not press charges on Patricia for making a scene at the casino. Danny had to pay a huge amount of money to cover my ruined dress, the hairdressers, the bill for the hotel room, where Maxine and her assistant proceeded to order a bunch of food, clean out the minibar, take some “souvenirs” from Danny’s tour gear, and generally wreck shop. Luckily Mom had taken Jane back to their room to wait everything out. Jane cried when we told her the wedding was off.

  When Danny arrived to pick us up at the police station, I could barely look at him. I felt so disgusted by the whole event, but I was nowhere near as wrecked as Patricia. Danny slept in Jane’s room that night, while Patricia and I cleaned up in ours and I held her while she cried late into the night.

  See, the night before, after the show, she’d gone back to her room to grab Max, but he wasn’t there. He’d left her a note saying he was sorry, but he couldn’t live the lie any longer and he wanted a divorce. Patricia went out in search of him with no luck. She returned to the room in the wee hours of the morning and found him in the most graphic of positions with a male dancer from one of the drag shows. It was pretty clear the lie he was living was that he was really gay and he wanted to be with other men. Patricia railed on and on about how she should have known when he begged her to go with him to see Barbra Streisand, or when he insisted on getting a membership at that exclusive gym in West Hollywood. She was beating up on herself, which I tried to stop, but then she howled about how she’d ruined everything for us when Danny was her best friend and she was so ashamed…

  I let her run out of steam and then I crashed hard. In the morning light she had back some of her business sense. She held a meeting with the band and told them they should fire her. When they absolutely refused, she said she was going to take some time off. She apologized profusely to my family and to Jane before leaving on her own. She planned to rent a car and drive back, said she needed time to think. Max had cleared his things out of the room and was long gone.

  Danny and I hadn’t spoken much. He had the disgusted look on his face every time I tried to apologize. The flight was short and quiet. The limo ride was even quieter. Danny held my hand, but didn’t speak.

  We got a surprise when we arrived home. Nora had returned, but had a guest with her. It seemed she and Roland’s current personal assistant had more than hit it off. She took one look at our faces, introduced us quickly, and then took Jane with her to her cottage so Danny and I would have some time alone.

  He carried our bags to our room and set them gently inside. I sat down on the edge of the bed and put my head in my hands.

  “Did you want some food? Do you want to sleep?” He walked over and sat next to me, leaving space between us. I stared long and hard at that space.

  “Danny, I don’t…”

  “You don’t have to say anything. I’m the one who’s sorry. But seriously? How the fuck was I supposed to know that Max was going to get a blow job from a drag queen? I mean, come on! I’ve known the fucking guy as long as I’ve known Patricia. When I see him, it’s going to be really fucking hard not to put some dents in his skull, that’s for sure. It was just shitty timing, I guess.”

  He had a half smile on his face. I turned to face him. “Please call me Jesse Martin Black or Mrs. Black or something to let me know that you’re not mad at me and that—”

  “Jesse! How could you even… Son of a…” He took me in his arms and stroked my hair as I cried on his shoulder.

  “I wanted you to carry me across the threshold when we got back! I wanted to go down to DMV with our marriage license and change my name! Why, dammit?”

  “Shhhhh, honey. It’s okay. It’s going to happen. I promise you we’re still gett
ing married. We kind of have to now. Look.”

  Danny lifted up his shirt and across his left pectoral was tattooed in beautiful script “Jesse Martin Black.” An infinity symbol was interwoven through the letters. It was still angry looking because he’d just gotten it done, what, two nights before? Was it two?

  “Oh, babe! You did it.” Seeing it tattooed there just made me cry harder. He held me and kept whispering silly things to me about how Max was going to hate all the shit he’d have to go through to become a drag queen. When he used the term “tucking,” we fell back on the bed together and I let myself just breathe him in.

  “You promise we’re going to get married?”

  He nodded against my hair. “You bet your gorgeous fucking legs we are. Just…No more Elvis. And no more Vegas. I don’t want to see that fucking place for a long fucking time!”

  We agreed to come up with a new plan…Later. After we’d rested, after Patricia was back and feeling better, and after the tours were over.

  Chapter - Fourteen

  2014

  The new year sure came in with a roar. But after Vegas, we slipped back into life like nothing had changed. Danny gave up his obsession with getting married, but thankfully he didn’t give up his obsession with getting busy with me. We had so much fun when he was home from tour. I was grateful. I worried he would mope. I worried the other shoe would drop. It took a while for me to stop flinching every time the phone rang.

  Things had definitely changed, though. I rarely saw Nora. She and Amalia spent most of their time out and about or holed up in her cottage. She still cooked and took care of business, but I missed our chats. One night towards the end of March, Nora sat down at the table where I was grading papers.

  “Jesse? Can I interrupt you for a bit?”

  She never really talked to me like that. I was already nervous. “What’s up?”